Grazel Garcia in conversation with Shana Lutker
Introduction
To mark the occasion of the publishing of Crossed Signals, Grazel Garcia’s first book, The Alamo’s Clinical Training Director Shana Lutker sat down with Grazel to talk about her work with couples and diverse neurotypes, these particular struggles faced by couples where one or both partners have ADHD, and ways to address this in couples therapy. In this conversation, Shana asks her about her approach tailored to address both couples and therapists, how to build greater acuity in calling out and transforming the patterns of relating that become exacerbated or cemented when ADHD is present, and how to break the cycle.
Watch as they tackle concepts like “RSD,” “Pause and Wonder,” and share resources for ADHDers and non-ADHDers, for “regular” people and clinicians.
Video Transcript
Grazel Garcia in conversation with Shana Lutker
October 20, 2026
Shana Lutker: Hi, Grazel. Thank you for joining me today. I'm Shana Lutker, the Clinical Training Director at the Alamo Psychotherapy. I'm also an LMFT and I work a lot with couples. And when I saw your book had just come out, I was so excited for the opportunity to talk to you.
Grazel Garcia is an LMFT, also an ICEEFT Certified couples therapist and supervisor in Emotionally Focused Therapy. You're the founder and director of Gracelight, which is a private therapy practice in LA on the east side, and has spent over 15 years helping couples break painful relational cycles using EFT. She’s a bilingual Filipino-American clinician, and does speaking and training, too.
Here's the book, Crossed Signals: Why ADHD Turns Ordinary Conversations into Fights and How to Finally Feel Close Again.
Thank you for being here. It's been great to get to meet you through this.
Grazel Garcia: Yes. Thank you, Shanna, and I feel welcomed, and I love the introduction. Thank you, and it's nice to be here.
SL: Yes. So again, I was so excited when I saw your book, because I've been looking for texts that deal with ADHD in couples, because it's really something that I mean, I truly see in my practice every day. I think ADHD is in the room every day, and in, just in the last two months, I've started working with two couples who both came because one of the partners has a newer diagnosis for ADHD, and they want to figure out how to deal with this, and how it changes the dynamics between them, and their understanding of what's happening.
I did a little Google search, and the numbers are pretty astounding: In the US, according to the CDC and the CHADD, there's about 22.5 million people who currently have an ADHD diagnosis, and. Of that, it's about 15 and a half million are adults. So that's 6% of the population or one in 17. And about half of those adults received diagnoses after age 18.
I know you did all the research, too, it's pretty significant, you know?
GG: Good, yeah.
SL: Again, that's people who have the diagnoses. And so, we know from our experience, that there's lots of people who don't have the diagnosis or who think they do, or who, now that so much more dialogue is happening in the culture around ADHD, they can pick up on the traits that they know they have, even if they don't go in for a diagnosis or medication or something like that. It's so prevalent. And I think what your book addresses head on is—as these numbers of people who identify their sort of neuro framework as ADHD grows and so many adults are getting these late diagnoses, their relationship struggles are reframed. Things that they had just been going along with get another side, a facet opens up.
GG: Yes.
SL: And that can be, very jarring or confusing—or, maybe it leads to a new sense of hope in solving some of the problems. And that's some of the ways your book is so helpful.
GG: Yeah. Yes.
SL: The book is identified for audiences that include; couples preparing for therapy, couples who might not be able to access therapy, therapists who are trying to better serve neurodiverse couples, and also for, I love how it addresses both the ADHDer and the non-ADHDer.
GG: Yes.
SL: Maybe you could talk a little bit about this shift in the framework of the couple’s struggles when people come in with this new ADHD hat on, and how that shifts the dynamic. How you facilitate that with people?
GG: Yes, thank you. I think it's such a great introductory question, What happens when one partner is finally aware of their ADHD diagnoses, and if it does change the dynamic in the relationship. I think how I want to come at this question is a more general way where, just kind of normalizing that whatever new information we receive carries emotional weight. It changes the relational dynamic between partners, right? But when ADHD is present in the room. I think it's not really that it changes. I think it's different.
SL: Mm-hmm.
GG: When they're in the relationship, right away, the relationship feels different right from the get go. And over the course of the relationship, without knowing the diagnoses or the ADHD identity, to be less pathological, right?
SL: Yeah.
GG: When they find out, it's either like what you said, it's either it provides hope because there's a name for it, or, it shakes them up. The ADHDer and the non-ADHDer. It shakes them up in a way that really shapes the dynamic of the relationship and affects the attachment piece that they bring in from childhood.
The changes that are so important to see are toward the difference in the neurodiverse relational cycle. That's important to see. Most of the time, the ADHDers know they've had ADHD all their lives, right? it's not necessarily new to them.
SL: Yes.
GG: It's just maybe the diagnosis, the formal diagnosis is new. But the identity of having a different way of behaving and thinking have been with them all along.
SL: Mm-hm, yes.
GG: Maybe the identity they carried is that they don't have a different type of brain, but that there's something wrong with them.
SL: Yes
GG: Or that they're lazy. So that's the narrative and identity they've carried attached to the neurotype of ADHD. Cut to identifying it, and having a diagnosis, while you're having a relational interactional cycle that are negative. It can spike up more worry. “Uh-oh, what do I do now?”
Or the non-ADHD partner would say, “Wow, I don't really have time for this. I'm so exhausted. And this new information that I have to carry, I don't want to do it.”
I think it's important to know that those feelings are going to be either flat, intense, or it's going to escalate the cycle even more, or provide hope.
Another important thing is that, for therapists and for neurodiverse couples, they don't really know what the ADHD traits look like in behaviors. And in relationships.
So let's say, you have ADHD, but do you know actually how it affects you? In everyday life, and how that affects your partner in everyday life, in your interactional cycles. They usually don't know.
That's why it's so important for us therapists to be knowledgeable about it, so that if they don't know we can be the. the light that walks them through the dark tunnel and say, okay, we've got a path here. But if we're walking all blind, then you know that we can't really help each other.
SL: Yeah, so do you spend time in the beginning of working with a couple outlining or trying to define how the traits are operating in relational dynamics, or do you discover that along the way? Do you like for people to get a certain kind of assessment in advance? Because I hear what you're saying, right? It's so specific and so unique.
GG: Yeah, It's specific. And unique. And when we sit with couples, we know: there's something different in this relational dynamic.
SL: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
GG: But, even for myself, when I didn't know it, I didn't know what it was. I knew there's something off. I can't put a name to it, but there's something different.
SL: Yeah.
GG: So, when they come in, it depends. I have to see who's coming in to see me. Some people, they don't know, they don't know they're in a neurodiverse cycle. They just think that there's a relational dissatisfaction, and we're gonna look at it.
I think what's beautiful about EFT, emotionally focused therapy, which is the modality I specialize in, is it focuses on behavioral moves that is attached to an emotion that is unacknowledged.
So we really look at traits regardless of the diagnosis, whether it's a depression symptom, anxiety symptom, trauma symptom, ADHD, or—that's why EFT is so perfect for it because you can just weave in the neurological piece of the neurodivergent brain or different neurotypes into EFT. So when they come in and they say, “We have a relational problem,” but we don't have “Neurodiversity,” they're not naming it. I normally won't name it. I don't provide an assessment. I just sit with them relationally, and then I just ask them what's going on. But as an expert in it, I can hear it right away if there's different type of brains, feeling misaligned and disconnected.
SL: Yes, and I imagine, like you're saying, with EFT in general, you're really trained to look at these moves that are driven from something underneath that happen. When someone just keeps doing something that doesn't quite seem in reaction solely to the partner, right? There's something going on.
GG: Yes. When there's a neurological difference, you can see it. I mean, not see it, but you can hear it and the partners can feel it.
SL: Yes.
GG: If they come in with a diagnosis, then yes, that means they're open to the diagnoses, they're open to that identity, they're confident about their identity, (some aren’t)--but at least they have a name for it. Then that's when I actually give assessments.
SL: Yes. Is there something that you wish that couples dealing with a new diagnosis in the relationship, could know right from the beginning. Like, “This is what I just want you to hold onto, as we go through this journey?: Or is there some thing that you found, that you wish everyone could know?
GG: Yes. When you're per the personalization. Okay, when you feel like everything feels so, hysterical, when you shouldn't be acting that hysterically about something, or that you shouldn't be fighting about tardiness, or being late all the time, or having to feel embarrassed when one partner gets too loud and the other partner doesn't.
I think intuitively, trust your gut. There's something that feels disconnecting. And if it feels disconnecting to the point that feels hysterical inside, and you're personalizing it.
GG: I want you to hold that if it feels so personal that there's something wrong with you, or that you're not cared for, you're not loved, because the ADHD trait is showing that they don't care about you, then you know there's something that is neurologically layered into your cycle.
GG: Did that answer your question?
SL: Yes.
GG: So, usually, I'll give them that; “Does it feel that personal?” And if they said yes, because it intensifies their attachment, then I slowly look into whether it's neurologically based or whether it's an attachment insecurity.
SL: Can you think of an example of that?
GG: Yes. For example, if the ADHDer is hyper-focused in the beginning of the relationship. And I think I talk about this in the book, in the very beginning, but in small snippets, right? And the novelty provides stimulation to the brain, so, you’re the only one that exists in the world.
And let's say you didn't get that growing up, okay? You were never paid attention to in your, in your home. Your siblings probably got more attention than you. Maybe once in a while, you'll get a gift or a celebration, but it's not consistent. And the hyper focus of the ADHD brain is so consistent in the beginning. But then it dissipates. And it's not gradual either. It just plummets. And if you're the person on the receiving end with an attachment and security that says, “I'm not enough, no matter what I do, no matter how great I am as a kid, and how great of grades I get and how great I am with sports. I still don't get attention…” If you bring the ADHD traits to that attachment insecurity, and you mold it together, and then the hyperfocus plummets. Then the attachment security is intensified. Meaning, “Oh, you don't love me, you don't care about me, what happened in the beginning, you were giving me all of this attention, but now I'm not enough for you.”
SL: Yes.
GG: So that's neurological traits affecting the attachment insecurity. Now, if the hyperfocus isn't there, and it's consistent attention, and there's still attachment insecurity, then, then you know that you're just talking about childhood attachment insecurity that you need to work on.
SL: Okay, so it's when the neurological traits interlock in that Velcro hook way with an attachment, it magnifies.
GG: Yes. Magnifies and intensifies.
SL: This leads to: what do you do? What do you do in these moments? Right? I wanted to talk about a couple things that you identify in the book that were immediately helpful to me as a clinician in my work with couples. One being this idea of the pause. I think a lot about making space for a pause, before reacting within a pattern. Right? And I love the way that you talk about that and identify two different pauses within the book. The first one is a “pause that changes the pattern.” If you could speak a little bit to this idea of the pause with, and how it's different with ADHD? Because part of what ADHD is that the wiring jumps over that pause, right? How do you work to expand the time there, and to make the pause happen. Maybe you can talk a little bit about that positive change?
GG: I think for couples, it's really important to understand what, as therapists, we have to really provide—I think you said this—we have to provide space for that pause.
SL: Mm-hmm.
GG: Right? And that is the foundation we need to keep repeating over and over again, and creating space so that it’s experientially learned versus cognitively learned.
And I think it's so important to know what works for the ADHD brain. They need to be able to connect with their body a lot more, even though their brain is going to say, “Oh, it's really boring to do yoga,” because, of course, it's not stimulating enough, or it's slow. And the brain needs firing of stimulation and dopamine.
So, the pause that breaks the pattern. This is something that I cultivate. Within the context of the work that we all do as therapists—we pause in between reacting.
We may not say something right away. We may just sit with them and just breathe together. The more I'm able to cultivate that, then the more I'm able to name it for them. If I name it first, I feel like I lose them.
SL: You have to wait.
GG: I have to wait, and see their experiencing level in their body, to see if they are able to pause now? Have I cultivated a little bit of that fraction so that I can work with the brain, because the brain, like you said, it's so fast, it skips that pause. The gap is significantly shorter between impulse and reaction.
So, the breathing. I think in my book I used “felt” and “notice.” The feeling of the body sensations and noticing them is the actual pause. It's the signal that makes you pause. So, once you know you're feeling something, use that as your pause. It doesn't have to be another task for you to do, that it's there with you already.
I think that's the key to learning it right away so that you can start breaking the pattern. If you don't, you're just going to be on defend, defend, attack, attack, withdraw, withdraw.
SL: Mm, yes: when you start to feel something, that means pause. Feel it. Think about it. You don't react.
GG: Don't react. And then, when you notice something, you notice a bird flying. “Oh, I noticed that bird,” that's your signal. You don't have to find another thing that you have to remember to do. It's within us.
SL: Yes. And, the second pause that you describe was in relation to RSD—which was a term that was new to me, although I'm familiar with the pattern—“rejection sensitive dysphoria.”
GG: Yeah.
SL: Can you talk a little about RSD and the antidote that you outlined called “pause and wonder.” It's the “2.0” of the pause we're talking about now.
GG: Yeah, I love that, the 2.0. So, the pause that changes the pattern is just not reacting. The pause in relation to RSD is “pause and wonder.”
SL: Mm-hmm.
GG: Right? So, it's pause and non-reacting, and then, pause and wondering: “I wonder what's happening to my partner when I do this.”
Because it removes you from personalizing what's happening for you. And then you're putting in an empathy piece, and thinking about your partner.
SL: Mm-hmm.
GG: It's so important when it comes to breaking RSD, because RSD is all self-centered, and it's all about you. It's all about the person who experiences RSD. Where, “I did something wrong, there's something wrong with me again.”
In my book, I talk about my partner and when we would fight about it alot. We would fight a lot about this one question: Have you walked the dogs? That's my whole question, but I can't even form that sentence, because the RSD takes over.
So the only thing I can say is, “Have you…,” and the RSD gets between that sentence. And it escalates from there. Back then, you know, my partner couldn't think, “Oh, I wonder what's happening to Grazel when I don't let her finish the sentence?” Because there's no connection there, if you didn't let me finish what I'm saying. You might understand what I'm asking, but it's still not a very clear signal.
SL: And at the same time. You [Grazel] can understand what she's thinking, you can make space for it, right? That she immediately feels your critical voice: “You probably didn't do it, so I'm asking you,” right? It's embedded in there.
GG: Yes. That's the RSD, exactly. You created a narrative for the RSD, is that, “Oh, you think I didn't do it.” But for me I'm thinking, “Oh, I just need to figure out what I have to do for the day.” I want to outline my day.
SL: Yeah. I am also familiar with this in my own relationship. There is this…
GG: An assumption, like a quick assumption.
SL: Yes. And I think I typically give credit that this has been built up—that they have enough experience of being criticized to have that reaction. It's not only from the past. It's from within the patterns of the relationship.
GG: Yeah. Absolutely.
SL: But, it's really hard to shake. I work on this with couples, too. It's about tone sometimes, too. When you're in the best mood, and you want to say, “Have you walked the dogs yet? Because I really want to do it now because it's beautiful outside, so I want to do it.” And, you never get there, you know?
GG: Yes. You never get there. But also, and I love how you're naming the importance of RSD, as part of the neurology, but also that trauma that the ADHDers experience within the context of the society that we live in, where the neurodivergent brain that diverges from what's considered normal means it's inferior.
The patterns that we see and the way they're treated is that they're “less than,” so they're getting criticism from people: “There's something wrong with you, you're just lazy.” What if you just think this way, right? So, it's really hard for them especially within the context of the relational cycle. If the non-ADHD partner have become really critical—because they do become very critical—because of the unmanaged ADHD traits, it will intensify the RSD even more.
SL: Yes.
GG: So, I love that twist that you're adding, it's not that they've had history of criticism all along.
SL: Yes, it's not out of nowhere, even though sometimes the reaction feels that way, right? And, connected with this, if we keep going, into the idea expressed in your book about when anger becomes a problem itself. This is blame reversal. This happens in many relationships, not just ones where there might be some ADHD present. But when a partner is disappointed or frustrated and angry about something, and tries to address it, and they have that anger in that expression—it's a tone thing again, or it's the emotion from underneath. The then partner reacts to that anger, And doesn't get to hear what their partner is saying.
GG: Yes.
SL: It gets turned around so that anger is felt or interpreted as aggression instead of a partner's cry for help.
GG: There's a reason.
SL: Maybe you can talk a little bit about this blame reversal pattern, and we can give some examples.
GG: Yeah. The neurodiverse cycle in the room gets so escalated quickly, and so when we're sitting in the room, and they've had a history of defend, defend, and attack, attack. It will show up, and both of them get angry. But I think it's so important to be able to tease out what makes the non-ADHD partner angry, because they don't ever get the airtime because of RSD.
SL: Yes.
GG: And I like how you follow with that question after RSD, because RSD can really take over without mentalization, without thinking about the other person and their impact.
Once the RSD is in between the partners, then the anger doesn't get airtime. And the anger is now blamed for the cause of the cycle.
Whereas, they are both are doing something. Both partners are fueling the cycle so that's why it's igniting. The fire is igniting because of both of them.
SL: Yes.
GG: It's not just one person. As therapists, we want to be able to slow down. “What makes you angry about the behaviors of your partner when it comes to their ADHD traits?”
Really making it explicit, doing the two-layer language of implementing the neurological cycle, and the attachment cycle, and normalizing the feelings, the legitimate feelings of anger. So long as it's not abusive. It's not condescending, it's not demeaning, because we don't allow that.
SL: Yes.
GG: We can't allow that, right? So I think it's really important to be able to say, “Okay, your anger is legitimate. And at the same time. It requires space and airtime for you to feel heard, so you don't feel exhausted.”
I have to really make sure that I'm giving time to each partner, and then the non-ADHD partner. To see if they can let the RSD park a little bit, so they can hear the reasons for why the non-ADHD partner is angry.
SL: And over time, one would hope that the RSD can recede, or be, like you said, parked over there for a while. Maybe forever, but probably not forever.
GG: Oh yes, they're able to detach with love from their RSD. They know when. I usually use an analogy of, “Is your RSD lens on?”
SL: So, you name RSD in the room, and you can work with it directly.
GG: Yes, usually we use a metaphor or analogy. I’ll ask, “what image do you want to use, for, to define your RSD.” But most of the time, the RSD lens is on, and once that's on, they're blind from seeing the partner’s experience. So I'll ask them, can we take it off and park it for a minute? And that becomes like their pause and wonder piece.
SL: They can think, “I feel it's happening. I need to just be here with my partner and not with my RSD.”
GG: Yes.
SL: Well, I went quickly into some of these specific issues in the book, but I’d like to back up and go from a bird’s eye view.
Writing a book is such a feat. Can you describe the path of the book, how you kind of came to do this, and why it's important in your field at this moment?
GG: You know, as therapists, we either have to. write a journal or an article. It's part of our trajectory in our careers, right? But I didn't think I would write a book. I really didn't think so. But I was in writing classes at UCLA, maybe a year or two years, before I wrote the book. Just being in the class, not really thinking of writing a book, just being in the class.
SL: You thought, I want to focus on writing.
GG: Maybe some people don't believe in connection that's outside of us, but I was in a training for Emotionally Focused Family Therapy. And on the third day of our training, the founder of Emotionally Focused Therapy, Dr. Sue Johnson, died. And all of a sudden, that's when I said, I think I'm going to write a book on ADHD and EFT. That was my first thought.
SL: Something happened.
GG: On that same day. And then I took a pause, about 2 months, and then I said, I should write about this. It's something I do every day, every hour of the day, for the last twelve or fourteen years. I can do this with my eyes closed. And I started writing.
And when I was putting the thoughts to paper, I couldn't do it. It took me two whole years. I would work four days a week. I would wake up at 5am and do my gym routine. At 6am, I would shower. By 6:30, I would be writing until 10:30am, and then I start my sessions at 11 to 5. I would eat dinner and then, at 7:30, I wrote till 11:30pm. And that was every day.
SL: Wow.
GG: For two years. So, I had 15 drafts. At first, it was very academic. The first several drafts. And I said, no one's going to read this. And I started working with a professional editor that really helped me. And I really thank her. Her name is Karen. And she's really great.
SL: The book is very readable. I just sat down and I read it. I loved it. And how you trace these four couples through. Congratulations!
GG: Thank you. It is such a feat. I didn't think I'd finish it.
SL: And the discipline that you exhibited in your writing schedule is really inspiring, I would love to be able to do that. I'm not capable of it right now, but at some point.
GG: I think I thought, I need to pull the strength of my partner's hyperfocus.
SL: Yeah, use the superpower and then…
GG: Do it.
SL: Is there anything else that we didn't hit on?
GG: One of the questions that we didn't look at was, do we need less or more diagnoses?
SL: Oh, yes.
GG: Yeah, for that piece, because it's such an important question. It is important to not pathologize a different neurotype.
If the medical diagnosis, the “ADHD,” is needed for insurance basis and when medication is clinically necessary, okay, let's use the identity as a diagnosis.
But for the context of the whole person. I think it's really important, within the context of social justice and reform, I think it's really important for us to just see it as a different brain. It's a different brain, and it processes different information and emotion. There's nothing wrong with the person.
They have difficulties with executive functioning. I mean, we all do.
SL: Yes.
GG: We all do. And there's I think it's really important to have less medical diagnosis when it comes to neurodiversity.
SL: Yes, I really do think often, the word “spectrum” that we use here is really helpful, because all of us truly are somewhere on that spectrum.
Diagnoses really do exist for, for the medical world, right? For the insurance, for the medication. I think that most therapists would say we don't really need the data.
GG: Yes. We don't really need that, right? We're people, we're human, and if we want to medicalize a label or a diagnosis, we want to use it for medical purposes, but not to feel like we're superior or inferior. It's such a divide.
SL: But again, as you mentioned earlier, at the same time, sometimes the diagnosis is really helpful to the person, right?
GG: Yes. Mm-hmm.
SL: And, there's a lot we could say about that.
GG: Yeah, and I think working with each person, too, and really just asking, how do you identify? How do you want to use this? Do you want to use this, in a way that it's medicalized, so that you can use the medications that's appropriate for the treatment? If not, we don't—that's all we use it for.
You don't need to pathologize it because it's not a pathology.
SL: In leaving our interview, you have some really good resources at the end of your book, and I wonder if there were any favorite ADHD-related books, apps, or something to recommend?
GG: Yeah. I think my number one would be Melissa Orlov's book for couples. I've also worked with her. She's an amazing person. She's great. She's a non-ADHD-er, and she was, in a relationship with her husband, who had ADHD. Her book, The ADHD Effect on Marriage, it's very different from my book. That's why I didn't want to write an ADHD book that's similar to other books. Her book is what you need when you're really looking at traits, because she specifies more of the traits. For me, I already know it, so I don't have to really write it, and there's books on it.
That is useful, so that one is really great that they can read either prior to my, reading my book or after.
When sex is an issue, ADHD After Dark is really good, too, by Ari Tuckman.
Hold Me Tight. by Dr. Sue Johnson is really good. Love Sense is really good, too.
Love and Limerence, I don't think I put that in, but to see when love is in the limerence stage and how that attaches to hyperfocus, I think it'll give them a good understanding.
Oh, and for for podcasts and magazines and articles, ADDitude is so helpful. I'm always on there, too.
SL: I refer people to that a lot, and it really gives you a the sense of the community.
GG: Yes.
SL: Well, Grazel, thank you so much for taking the time, for helping us all out with your book. We'll have a link to it if people want to order it. And it's just been so nice to get to meet you, another therapist on this side of town in LA.
GG: Yes! Well, thank you so much, Shana, and to everyone at Alamo. I appreciate meeting with you.
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Grazel Garcia